PRESCIENCE OR SERENDIPITY - PARALLELISM IN LIVING SYSTEMS-THEORY AND MODERN SOCIOLOGICAL-THEORY

During the 1950s and 1960s, Parsonian functionalist systems theory was the dominant theory in American sociology. Since that time, the syste ms perspective has waned in sociology. Functionalism was widely critiq ued, and no other systems theory has emerged (until recently) within s ociology to take its place. However, there are still remnants of syste ms theory in contemporary sociological theory, and still some interest in the perspective. In fact, there are major points of congruence bet ween prominent aspects of contemporary social theory and the ''new'' s ystems theories such as Living Systems Theory (LST), social entropy th eory and autopoietic theory. There is also a great deal of interest in micro-macro linkages among contemporary sociological theorists. The p urpose of this paper is to integrate LST and contemporary sociological theory. I will show that both approaches have a number of points in c ommon, such as emphases on time, space, process, structure, and concre te systems. In addition to this basic congruence, I will also show tha t LST covers a number of areas not sufficiently dealt with in contempo rary sociological theory, thus adding breadth and richness to it. Amon g the important contributions made by LST that are either entirely mis sing or relatively neglected in contemporary sociological theory are t he analyses of types of systems (abstracted, concrete, conceptual), th e 20 subsystems, the eight levels, the concept of organizational patho logy, the study of information-input overload, and the concept of a so cial marker. Thus, I will demonstrate that LST and contemporary sociol ogical theory are congruent in many ways, and compatible or complement ary in many others. There are no or few real points of conflict betwee n them. The major problem to date is that so few sociologists have a w orking knowledge of LST. Social theorists can benefit greatly from an understanding of LST, and this integration of LST and contemporary soc iology is designed to, among other things, further that goal. Specific ally, I will integrate LST with key mainstream sociological theories i ncluding Alexander's neofunctionalism, Giddens' structuration theory, and Collins' conflict theory.